Skip to content

SITC 2026 — Program Notes

Pre-meeting working notes. The meeting is 6 months out as of May 11, 2026. Most of this document is forward-looking and reconstructed from SITC 2025 program shape, sponsor pipelines, AACR 2026 echo, JPM 2026 strategy slides, and ASCO 2026 expected readouts. Anything not explicitly cited to a SITC 2026 announcement is speculative, flagged inline, and to be reconciled when the SITC program-at-a-glance posts (~Sep 2026) and the JITC abstract supplement publishes (~Oct 2026).

Verified meeting facts

  • Meeting: Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer 41st Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2026)
  • Dates: Wednesday Nov 4 – Sunday Nov 8, 2026
  • Wed Nov 4 – Thu Nov 5: Pre-Conference Programs (workshops, primer courses)
  • Fri Nov 6 – Sun Nov 8: Annual Meeting proper
  • Venue: Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Arizona
  • Format: Hybrid (in-person + virtual platform)
  • Scale: ~6,000 attendees, ~1,200 abstracts, >40 oral / concurrent sessions, several hundred posters
  • Keynote: Ton Schumacher, PhD (Netherlands Cancer Institute) — "T Cell Recognition of Human Cancer: 'Cracking the Code'"
  • Smalley Memorial Award & Lectureship: Catherine J. Wu, MD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) — neoantigen-vaccine science
  • Abstract submission window: opened Apr 22, 2026; closes Jun 25, 2026 (regular + Early Career Investigator)

Key dates

Date Event
Apr 22, 2026 Abstract submission opens
Jun 25, 2026 Abstract submission closes
Jul – Aug 2026 Abstract review
Sep 2026 Program-at-a-glance + abstract acceptance posted (typical SITC cadence)
Oct 2026 JITC abstract supplement publishes (~2–3 weeks pre-meeting; per SITC 2025 pattern)
Nov 4 – 5, 2026 Pre-Conference Programs
Nov 6 – 8, 2026 Annual Meeting
Per-talk embargo Lifts at start of presentation (no full-program embargo lift as at ASCO)

Primary sources

Source What it gives us
SITC 2026 home Program-at-a-glance, plenary slate, registration, faculty list
SITC main site Announcements, press releases, archived prior-year programs
JITC The citable abstract record — open access, DOI per abstract
ACIR Weekly Digest Curated post-session expert recaps; Cancer Research Institute editorial
CRI blog Conference-week editorial framing
OncLive / Targeted / CancerNetwork Trade-press recaps, video stand-ups
Endpoints / STAT / BioPharma Dive / Evaluate Analyst framing, sponsor stock reactions, M&A read-through
#SITC26 (X / Bluesky / LinkedIn) Real-time room reactions
SITC virtual platform Hybrid registration; session replay

Expected tracks (per SITC 2025 shape; speculative for SITC 2026)

SITC 2025 had concurrent sessions across the following themes, and SITC 2026 is expected to track closely (organizing committee continuity, similar abstract demographics). To be confirmed against the SITC 2026 program-at-a-glance once posted.

  1. Cellular therapies — CAR-T (autologous + allogeneic + in vivo), TIL, TCR-T, NK-cell, CAR-NK, engineered Tregs, engineered macrophages
  2. Checkpoint resistance — combinations to overcome primary / acquired anti-PD-(L)1 resistance; novel checkpoints (LAG-3, TIGIT, TIM-3, VISTA, BTLA)
  3. Bispecifics + ADCs — T-cell engagers, NK engagers, immunocytokines; PD-1 × VEGF; ADC + IO combos
  4. Neoantigen vaccines — personalized mRNA, peptide, DNA platforms; shared-neoantigen approaches; vaccine + checkpoint combinations
  5. Biomarkers / immune monitoring — multiplex IF, spatial transcriptomics, TCR repertoire, ctDNA-MRD, single-cell immune profiling, cytokine panels
  6. Microbiome × immunotherapy — FMT, defined-consortium products, dietary intervention, prebiotic / probiotic combinations
  7. Spatial-immune profiling — TME spatial atlases, response / resistance classifiers, biomarker development substrate
  8. Innate immunity in IO — myeloid reprogramming, macrophage repolarization, NK biology, innate-checkpoint blockade
  9. Toxicity management — irAE biology, CRS / ICANS, steroid-sparing interventions
  10. Pediatric IO + rare cancers — cell therapy in pediatric solid tumors, rare-tumor IO
  11. Regulatory science — FDA / EMA framework for cellular therapy, vaccine, biomarker qualification (joint sessions with FDA officials are a SITC tradition)

Anticipated big readouts (drug / cell-therapy side)

All entries below are speculative, sourced from sponsor pipelines + AACR 2026 echo + JPM 2026 strategy + ASCO 2026 preview. To be reconciled with the SITC 2026 program-at-a-glance and the JITC abstract supplement. Categorized by likelihood + impact.

Tier 1 — likely headline tracks

  1. In vivo CAR-T first-in-human safety — Capstan / Umoja / Outpace / Orna LNP-delivered constructs. First-in-human B-cell depletion kinetics + safety would define a new modality. The AstraZeneca / Capstan thesis from JPM 2026 (autoimmune-and-onc crossover) sets up SITC as the venue for the first-clinical-data readout.
  2. Solid-tumor CAR-T inflection — multiple academic + biotech Ph1 cohorts in GBM, mesothelioma, GI cancers (Claudin18.2, GPC3, mesothelin). Whether any cohort crosses the response threshold that justifies a pivotal trial.
  3. Personalized mRNA neoantigen vaccines update — Moderna mRNA-4157 (V940) in adjuvant melanoma / NSCLC / RCC; BioNTech BNT122 (autogene cevumeran) in pancreatic adjuvant + CRC; Gritstone shared-neoantigen platform CRC. The Wu Smalley lecture frames the whole field.
  4. Allogeneic CAR-T durability update — Allogene / Caribou / Cellectis CD19, BCMA constructs. Off-the-shelf cell-therapy proof point — durability is the long-standing question.
  5. TIL therapy beyond melanoma — Iovance Amtagvi cohorts in NSCLC + cervical; competitive set in HNSCC, NSCLC.

Tier 2 — class status checks

  1. Bispecific durability — BCMA × CD3 (teclistamab, elranatamab, linvoseltamab), CD20 × CD3 (epcoritamab, glofitamab, mosunetuzumab), GPRC5D × CD3 (talquetamab) long-term follow-up. Antigen escape and T-cell exhaustion as resistance themes.
  2. PD-1 × VEGF bispecific mechanism-of-action correlatives — ivonescimab (Summit / Akeso) post-HARMONi-6 ASCO Plenary; AbbVie RC148; BMS pumitamig. The class-defining moment may have been ASCO; SITC is the venue for the biological why.
  3. LAG-3 class status — relatlimab + nivo follow-on cohorts; novel LAG-3 antibodies in expansion. Whether LAG-3 holds beyond melanoma.
  4. TIGIT class status — post-Skyscraper, the survivors. Roche tiragolumab subset rescue; iTeos / GSK EOS-448; Gilead domvanalimab durability. Whether any subset-defined cohort revives the class.
  5. Microbiome × IO maturation — Vedanta, Seres, Finch defined-consortium products in checkpoint-refractory melanoma + RCC; academic FMT cohorts. Wargo's SITC 2025 keynote thread, now with randomized data.

Tier 3 — early-phase candidates worth tracking

  1. TCR-T solid-tumor expansion — Adaptimmune afami-cel post-approval cohorts; TScan TSC-100/101; Immatics IMA203 PRAME.
  2. NK-engager updates — Affimed AFM13 + AFM24; Sanofi SAR / NK-bispecific platform.
  3. Immunocytokines — Philogen IL2-targeted; Asher Bio IL-2v engineering; Mural IL-12 tumor-localized.
  4. ADC × IO combos — EV + pembro (Padcev), Trop2-ADC + IO, T-DXd + IO — durability and safety updates.
  5. HPV-driven cancer vaccines + checkpoint — ISA101 + pembro HNSCC; competitive set in cervical.

Anticipated tool / method talks to watch

Speculative, derived from SITC 2025 methods sessions + AACR 2026 spatial-and-single-cell talks + active commercial platforms.

Spatial-immune profiling

  • Akoya PhenoCycler-Fusion — large-panel mIF in trial correlatives
  • 10x Xenium / Visium HD — spatial transcriptomics in pre/post-treatment biopsies
  • NanoString CosMx — spatial profiling case studies in cell-therapy cohorts
  • Standard BioTools / IonPath MIBI-TOF — high-plex spatial proteomics
  • Lunaphore COMET — fast spatial-IF workflows; classifier development

Single-cell + TCR

  • 10x Chromium 5' + scTCR — pairing antigen-specificity to transcriptional state in TIL and CAR-T products
  • Adaptive immunoSEQ — clonotype tracking pre/post neoantigen vaccine
  • MiXCR / Mvision / Repertoire AI — open-source and commercial TCR-repertoire pipelines

ctDNA-MRD

  • Signatera (Natera) — tumor-informed MRD in adjuvant IO + vaccine trials
  • RaDaR (NeoGenomics) — tumor-informed alternative
  • Tempus xM / Guardant Reveal — tumor-naive MRD comparators

Neoantigen prediction

  • NetMHCpan / MHCflurry / Personalis NeXT / Gritstone EDGE / BioNTech iNeST — pipelines underlying personalized-vaccine programs. Comparative-benchmark sessions likely (Wu Smalley substrate).

Microbiome

  • Shotgun metagenomics + 16S — stool and tissue panels in microbiome × IO cohorts
  • Metabolomics — bile acid + SCFA panels paired with response data

Image analysis

  • QuPath / HALO / PathAI / Stardist — TIL counting, multiplex-IF segmentation, response classifiers

Cytometry

  • Cytek Aurora spectral flow — 40+ parameter immune-monitoring
  • Standard BioTools CyTOF Helios — mass cytometry deep panels

Cross-vault context

  • AACR 2026 — many SITC 2026 presenters had AACR sessions in April; the IO biology and spatial-immune work is largely the same investigator set
  • ASCO 2026 — perioperative IO (KEYNOTE-B15, ALCHEMIST, PROTEUS) and PD-1×VEGF bispecific (HARMONi-6) reach Ph3 at ASCO; SITC programs the mechanism + correlatives
  • JPM 2026 — cell-therapy financing, in vivo CAR-T thesis (Capstan / AZ), microbiome × IO platform investment; the strategic / corporate framing that motivates SITC trial slates
  • EuroBioC 2025 tools — analytical packages (SpatialData, DESpace, spatialFDA, barbieQ, mia / miaTime) that will appear in SITC correlative analyses

Speculation flags

The following content in this document is forward-looking and to be revised: - Tier 1 / 2 / 3 readout shortlists — sponsor toplines may change; trials may slip to ESMO 2026 (Oct), ASH 2026 (Dec), or AACR 2027 (Apr) instead of SITC - Tool / method shortlist — specific named platforms anticipated, actual session content from SITC 2026 program TBD - Track list — SITC 2025 shape extrapolated; SITC 2026 organizing committee may rebalance - Cross-conference links — currently anchored to anticipated AACR / ASCO / JPM 2026 content; firmer once SITC 2026 abstract titles land

Everything verified above the "Anticipated readouts" header is sourced to the SITC 2026 announcement page; everything below it is reconstruction.